Shaman Leveling: 30-49 Enhancement

This post’s MS Paint was done on a laptop with just the trackpad, so they’re even “better” then usual. Enjoy!

Playing an Enhancement Shaman
There isn’t all that much that changes in this particular level range from the 1-29 range. You’re still primarily a melee DPS class that weaves spells in between your attacks. But, you do start to get a better feel for how the class is going to play at max level as you finally get access to some of your really key features such as dropping all four totems with a single cast, actually having access to all four totems in the first place, and the ability to resurrect yourself.

As Enhancement, you’ll still have a very hybrid combat style where you weave melee and spells into a deadly mixture of ferocity, and the higher you get in level the more apparent that becomes. You don’t quite hit the premium level of that mixture in this level range, but you’re getting closer.

Enhancement-Specific Tips
The biggest suggestion I have for this bracket is directed at those of you who have played Enhancement in the past and are now leveling new ones or trying to get back into the class/spec after a long time away from it – do not use dual Windfury Weapon buffs. I loved rocking dual WF back in the day and seeing those swirly black tornados of doom popping left and right, but you’re gimping your own DPS if you do it. Also, don’t think you can get away with using spell caster weapons or fast weapons either, that’s all been nerfed.

Windfury Main Hand – Flametongue Off Hand

Otherwise, it’s pretty much business as usual compared to the last guide. The main difference is that Windfury is going to drastically increase how fast you kill things. This is where you’ll really be able to appreciate the greatness that is instant-Ghost Wolf, and where you’ll start to develop a closer relationship with your totems as casting them all is much easier as is removing them all and restoring mana in the process.

Important Spells & Abilities
Note that all numeric values are taken from the level 49 version of the spell for the purposes of this post.

Level 30-39

Ancestral Recall (30): Yanks the caster through the twisting nether back to their Hearthstone Location. Speak to an Innkeeper in a different place to change your home location.

Reincarnation (30): Allows you to resurrect yourself upon death with 20% health and mana. [Reagent: Ankh]

Totemic Recall (30): Returns your totems to the earth, giving you 25% of the mana required to cast each totem destroyed by Totemic Recall.

Windfury Totem (30): Summons a Windfury Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem increases the melee and ranged attack speed of all party and raid members within 40 yards by 10%. Lasts 5 min.

Magma Totem (36): Summons a Magma Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for (21 sec) sec that causes Fire damage to creatures within 8 yards every 2 seconds.

Grounding Totem (38): Summons a Grounding Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster that will redirect one harmful spell cast on a nearby party member to itself, destroying the totem. Will not redirect area of effect spells. Lasts 45 sec.

Ancestral Recall was one of my favorite things about the Shaman when I first started playing; back when your hearthstone had a one hour cooldown. It’s still useful, but with the cooldown on your hearth lowered to 30 minutes, or 15 with the guild perk that most people have by now, it’s not quite as good as it used to be. But, it’s still a really useful spell if you’re doing a lot of travel (anyone doing Archeology out there?).

Call of the Elements and Totemic Recall are the both spells I would have killed for back in the day when I leveled my first shaman. Being able to drop all four totems (or fewer if you wish) with a single click/cast is a fantastic upgrade from the multiple GCD’s it would have taken you before. Totemic Recall destroys all of your existing totems and gives you a portion of their mana cost back when you do. The main benefit of this spell, as Enhancement, is to clear your totems from an area where they might draw some accidental agro.

Reincarnation is one of the signature abilities of the Shaman, allowing you to resurrect yourself when you die. If you’ve ever played a Warlock it works more or less the same as a Soul Stone, except that you can’t cast it on anyone else and you don’t have to cast it on yourself beforehand as you can cast it anytime you die as long as it’s not on cooldown.

Windfury Totem gives you melee haste, and it’s your best default Air totem with its duration and general benefit. In dungeons it’s going to be a great help when you have melee or hunters in your group. Magma Totem is your AoE totem of choice as it deals AoE damage itself as well as allowing you to cast your Fire Nova through it. If you have several mobs around you, go ahead and drop the Magma Totem, but remember that Searing Totem will give you more damage for single targets, especially as you get higher in level.

Windfury Weapon is THE reason why I love the Shaman class and the Enhancement spec. Windfury Weapon procs cause you to get three free, instant attacks on your target. I like to call the “swirly black tornado of DOOM” because that’s what it looks like, and that’s what it is. If you have a decent weapon for your level then Windfury procs generally mean that your target is dead, even if they were at full health.

Lava Burst isn’t really associated with being Enhancement, but I want to mention it anyway for its auto-crit property. You won’t often end up in situations where casting spells trumps melee, but for those rare instances where you end up rooted/snared or that your target is fleeing, this can be a really great option. You’ll be in the habit of having Flame Shock on all of your targets anyway, so this one’s basically a free ranged crit on demand. Since I’m mentioning PvP in my leveling posts now as well, this is especially worth mentioning even if it’s not something you’re casting in every battle.

Grounding Totem is another great spell that further increases the Shaman’s varied tool set. It’s often dismissed as a PvP totem, for which it is fantastic (and is getting buffed, though the cooldown is getting nerfed), but it does have some solid usefulness in PvE as well. You’ll find more spell casters in dungeons than in just questing, but any time you’re up against casters you might as well utilize your get-out-of-target-free card.

Another one of my favorite spells for the Shaman is Far Sight, which many players simply dismiss. For PvE, yeah, it’s about half a step above worthless. But, it’s still both fun and useful. It’s biggest benefit is PvP, where you can scout areas at range. In Arathi Basin I like to defend the Mine while casting Far Sight on the top of the Blacksmith which gives me a clear view of the entire map, including Lumber Mill. In Warsong Gulch you can spy on the enemy base from the safety of your own (you need to be on the “outside” section between the tunnel and the roof to do this from “inside” the bases).

I love casting Far Sight in PvE to hunt rare spawns. The great thing about Far Sight is that you cast it on any area that you can see on your screen, but you can recast it to any point that you can see from the place you’re already looking at with Far Sight, so you can chain cast this to look at the entire continent. You can also use it to hunt vanity pets from raptor nests such as the Ravasaur Hatchling, Leaping Hatchling, and Darting Hatchling.

Level 40-49
It’s important to note that at level 40 you also gain the ability (finally) to wear Mail armor, and you’ll want to upgrade your gear as soon as possible as not only do you get more armor from Mail, but you’re also about to enter the level range where you get a buff to your primary stat (Agility) only if you’re wearing your class’s particular armor type in all slots, which happens to be Mail for Shamans.

Call of the Ancestors (40): Simultaneously places up to 4 totems specified in the Totem Bar. Can call different totems than Call of the Elements.

Mana Spring Totem (42): Summons a Mana Spring Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 5 min that restores 326 mana every 5 seconds to all party and raid members within 40 yards.

Wrath of Air Totem (44): Summons a Wrath of Air Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem provides 5% spell haste to all party and raid members within 40 yards. Lasts 5 min.

Call of the Ancestors is the same thing as Call of the Elements at level 30, except that it allows you to set a different group of the totems so you can work with the tools you need in any situation without a lot of time spent juggling them around. You’ll end up with four of these all together and that’s basically what they’re for. I like having one set up for general questing and dungeons and another for PvP.

As I’ve said before, mana isn’t a big deal for Enhancement, but Mana Spring Totem is worth mentioning because your totems are great buffs for your party and mana is one of the major obstacles for people to deal with in dungeon settings. This is my default Water Totem for that very reason. Wrath of Air Totem I mention for the same reason I do Mana Spring; you aren’t a caster but you’ll definitely end up with at least one in any dungeon or battleground that you go to.

There are a few other spells you get in this range as well, and while they are useful they aren’t that great for Enhancement. Chain Heal is the biggest potential exception there, but it’s not as good at this level as it will be in another 20 levels when you can cast it instantly.

While Windfury Weapon is fantastic, it has an internal cooldown on it that will make your off hand weapon occasionally rob you of procs on your main hand which will result in decreased DPS. At level 62 I lost roughly 220 DPS using dual Windfury Weapon, and I didn’t even have all the talents that make Flametongue Weapon really shine for the off hand.

[EDIT: I had Primal Strike listed in the rotations instead of Stormstrike. Primal Strike is worthless once you have Stormstrike, so remove it from your bars and forget that it exists. The two share a cooldown, and Stormstrike out performs Primal Strike in every way.]

Questing Single Mob (no change from the 29 Guide)
In this rotation you’re just going to destroy targets as fast as possible. If you’re using heirloom weapons then I definitely suggest you stick to using Earth Shock as your go-to shock spell, but if you’re not using heirlooms then you might find Flame Shock to be a better option for the opening cast as it’s DoT damage will add up over time to be even more than Earth Shock. Any shocks you cast after the first one should be Earth Shocks though, unless you missed with the Flame Shock cast.

Questing Multi-Mob
Now that you can drop all four of your totems with a single cast I suggest you drop them as you rush into combat instead of planting them in advance as it just saves time. You can plant them ahead of time if you’d like, I just prefer doing it on the move. If the group of mobs you’re going to fight are close together, go ahead and pull them with a Chain Lightning, otherwise just stick to the rotation.

The point here is primarily to get Flame Shock cast on all of your targets so that they’re all taking damage, and then speeding up their deaths with your melee attacks. Light one up, bash them in the face a time or two, switch targets and repeat. Windfury procs will speed up your multi-mob combat speed a lot when it procs.

If you need to heal in these situations, go ahead and do so. If you find yourself running short on mana because you’re healing go ahead and switch over to Water Shield for the mana return and switch back to Lightning Shield when your health and mana are at a more manageable level.

LFG Trash
This one is the same as solo questing, except that sometimes you might want to bother with totems and others you might not. I don’t cast my totems by default at this level when I’m doing LFG, instead I wait to see how quickly we’re progressing through the instance. If we’re moving at a fast pace then I usually don’t bother with any of them until we see a boss. If we’re going kind of slow or we have people who are /afk or something, then I’ll go ahead and drop the totems to increase everyone’s performance.

For most trash pulls though, just stick to Earth Shocks and using your melee strikes as often as possible.

Wind Shear: Deserves a special mention here though. Shamans have crazy-good spell interruption capabilities thanks to Wind Shear. If you see a mob casting spells, particularly a healer, interrupt as many of their spells as possible. If you’re in instances with caster mobs who are especially annoying then be sure to make use of Wind Shear when they’re casting the spell you don’t want to go through.

During boss fights you can also use this to lower your Threat as you can cast it even if there’s not a spell to interrupt. With Windfury procs, each extra attack can generate a critical hit which can send your threat through the roof. With such a short cooldown and the fact that it can be cast regardless of the GCD, there’s really no reason for you not to use it.

LFG Boss
For bosses you want to maximize your DPS potential. That means that you’re going to make sure Flame Shock stays active on the boss as long as possible, and that you’re going to utilize your totems for the good of your group.

Using Searing Totem will give you a higher, personal DPS score on a boss fight, but if you have at least one caster DPS in your group then you should probably lean towards Flametongue as both they and the healer will benefit from it as will you (though to a lesser extent). If there are no caster DPS in the group then switch your Fire totem over to Searing and drop it right next to the boss when you move into melee range. Mana Spring is the choice for Water as your mini heals from the other won’t help nearly as much. Windfury is your default Air, but if your other two DPS are both casters then go for Wrath of Air instead since Haste really isn’t your top priority anyway.

Once Flame Shock is dealing its damage you’ll start rotating through your melee attacks and casting Earth Shock as filler while you wait to refresh Flame Shock. If you time your shocks just right you can get two Earth Shocks off with almost perfect timing for your shocks to refresh just as Flame Shock ends, allowing you to reapply it immediately with no time lost.

Wind Shear will still work on many boss abilities at low levels, so be ready to use it when you get the chance as Shamans have a fairly flexible and laid back rotation at this point. Spells you want to interrupt in particular are healing spells and AoE damage spells such as Chain Lightning. I could go into specifics, but this is a class guide, not a boss guide, so just use your own judgment. Remember that Wind Shear also lowers your threat, which can be a big deal now that you have Windfury Weapon on your main hand and can generate some very high burst threat.

Talent Spec: 49 Enhancement Shaman

Static Shock 3/3: When you use your Primal Strike, Stormstrike, or Lava Lash abilities while having Lightning Shield active, you have a 45% chance to deal damage equal to a Lightning Shield orb without consuming a charge.

Elemental Devastation 1/3: When you deal critical damage with a non-periodic spell, your chance to get a critical strike with melee attacks increases by 3% for 10 sec.

Searing Flames 3/3: Causes the Searing Bolts from your Searing Totem to have a 100% chance to set their targets aflame, dealing damage equal to the Searing Bolt’s impact damage over 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.

Elemental Devastation +2 (3/3): When you deal critical damage with a non-periodic spell, your chance to get a critical strike with melee attacks increases by 9% for 10 sec.

Unleashed Rage 1/2:
Increases your expertise by 4, and increases all party and raid members’ attack power by 5% while within 100 yards of the Shaman.

Honorable Mention:Frozen Power 2/2: Increases the damage done by your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Lash, and Shock spells by 10% on targets afflicted by your Frostbrand Attack effect, and your Frost Shock has a 100% chance to root the target in ice for 5 sec. when used on targets at or further than 15 yards from you.

Static Shock is first on my list because I like to have more consistent DPS increases rather than relying on something like crit chance. While there’s only a 45% chance to proc the talent, that’s still much more consistent than a bit of crit chance. That being said, I do like Elemental Devastation for additional crit on my melee attacks when I crit with spells. With the Shaman’s hybrid melee/caster play style you’ll deal with a lot of opportunities to get this to proc. I suggest splitting the points you spend it though, because of this next talent.

Searing Flames is the reason why your Flame totem of choice is Searing Totem. It causes the totem to turn into a stacking DoT debuff. While level 49 opens you up to another key class/spec ability (Shamanistic Rage), I don’t feel that this one in particular needs to be rushed into as survivability is typically a non-issue while leveling and you don’t really have enough high-cost spells to need the mana benefits of it just yet. Instead I suggest you increase our DPS through Unleashed Rage as it not only gives you 5% more attack power (10% once you spend the other point in it), but it also reduces your chance to be avoided. Not only that, but it gives that benefit to your whole party/raid.

The Honorable Mention is a talent that I spent points in instead of topping off Elemental Devastation right away. It’s usually considered a PvP talent since it freezes people in place and gives extra buffs when using Frostbrand Weapon (the PvP imbue), but I really enjoy using it in PvE as well. I use it often when gathering to freeze mobs that would otherwise stop me from gathering, I use it to stop runners (though I could use a totem for that), and of course I do love using it in PvP as well. I like having types of control in my tool set for any class that I play, and this talent fits very well into my play style.

With Lava Lash being a staple attack and the fact that you get it at level 10, this is my first choice of Prime Glyphs, increasing its damage by 20%. Next up is Stormstrike as the bonus crit can be useful with how many spells you cast in combat. Finally I have Flame Shock listed though it’s important to note that it’s really only useful in LFG boss fights or in PvP as typical mobs and dungeon trash will not live long enough for even the normal duration to matter.

Lightning Shield is overall going to be the most useful glyph for you here; it’s how you turn your Lightning Shield into a solid 10 minute buff instead of lasting only for three hits worth. Ghost Wolf is my next choice because moving faster is always a good thing, both in PvE and PvP. Frost Shock deserves a mention for those of you interested in getting into some low level PvP, though I would generally always suggest Ghost Wolf above this one for that purpose.

Fire Nova is probably the best investment if you’re looking to beef up your AoE ability in dungeons by increasing its radius and taking away the hassle of replanting your totems. Chain Lightning is one I haven’t used myself, but it deserves a mention for AoE if you enjoy it.

I’m a huge fan of getting rid of reagents, so Water Walking is the definite first choice here. We have a few more options that do the same thing for spells that opened in this range, with Water Breathing and Renewed Life. Of the three, you’ll cast Water Walking more often (I do, at least), but Renewed Life is probably more valuable overall. The other cool option is Ancestral Recall, which cuts the cooldown in half. It’s not super useful in today’s short hearthstone world, but if you need to do a lot of back and forth travel (*cough*archeology*cough*) then it can be really useful. Arctic Wolf is a simple vanity glyph that just changes the way you look in Ghost Wolf form.

Gearing Up Your Shaman
As Enhancement your primary stat is Agility. Each point gives you 2 Attack Power and it also boosts your Melee Crit (and Dodge). Intellect boosts your Spell Power on a 1:1 ratio, and it also increases your Spell Crit and your mana. Strength is a decent stat for you as it still gives a 1:1 ratio for Attack Power, but it’s not something you really want to seek out unless you just cannot find any Agility pieces at all for those slots.

You also want to look for gear with Hit on it in particular since you take a penalty to melee hits for dual wielding. You don’t need a ton of Hit to get you by while you’re leveling, but if you find some good Agility pieces that also have Hit on them then be sure to pick them up.

For green gear with random enchants you’re probably most interested in “..of the Falcon” (Agility and Intellect), “..of the Tiger” (Agility and Strength), and “..of the Monkey” (Agility and Stamina).

As you get into running random dungeons you’re looking for items with the “..of Agility” and “..of the Bandit” (Agility, Stamina, and Crit) enchant on them from the Satchel of Helpful Goods.

There are two ways you can look at gearing up your low level Shaman. You can either go for maximum killing potential, which is stacking Agility above all else, or you can go with a more balanced build where you look for gear with both Agility and Stamina. I prefer maximizing my damage potential, personally, and going for good survival pieces in slots that I have no Agility piece to fill in. If you’re not used to healing on the fly as a DPS spec though, you might want to lean more towards survival.

Dungeon Gear
I got some good feedback from putting the dungeon drop list in the last post, so here’s one for this level range as well. Again, I’m not going to go into detail as far as which pieces to pair up from which dungeons to get a “best in slot” list, but I will give you a list of the items that if they dropped for me, I would consider rolling on if they were an upgrade to what I currently had.

A lot of the “good” lower level gear is tuned more towards Strength, which is still good though it’s not great. Agility is where it’s at, so don’t pass up an Agility piece for a Strength piece unless the value is at least twice that of the Agility piece.

Also remember that while Leather is still really good gear for you, you should try to upgrade all of your armor slots to Mail as soon as possible from level 40 on.

The Ebon Vise gloves drop from a rare spawn. Ironspine’s Eye also comes from a rare spawn, as does his Fist and Ribcage. Ironspine’s Fist isn’t the best weapon for us, as it’s a little bit fast, but at least it has both Agility and Hit. The Gloves of the Pure are a quest reward.

I mention the Hand of Righteousness only because if you don’t have access to heirlooms then despite the fact that the bonus stats on it kind of suck for your spec, the damage and speed on it aren’t too bad. While it’s definitely more of a caster weapon, if nobody needs it and it’s an upgrade for you, go ahead and take it.

The Grasps of the Insane and Band of Grandiose Illusions are both quest rewards from the same quest.

The Ferine Leggings may be leather, but they have great stats on them. The Tusken Helm and Pronged Reaver are particularly great drops, assuming you don’t have heirlooms to fill those slots instead.

The Monkey Ring, and the items below it, are all quest rewards. The Ring is from one quest, the rest from another. Again, some are listed just as upgrades to slots that you might be struggling with, not necessarily because they’re “great” items.

Uldaman is kind of cool in that a lot of the boss drops have random enchants. At the same time, it sucks for that very same reason. You’re looking for enchants with Agility or Attack Power, Intellect isn’t too bad, nor is Strength. Galgann’s Firehammer is a great weapon if you don’t have heirlooms; it’s just a big faster than optimum, but the damage proc can add up fast with Windfury Weapon procs as all four attacks can proc the extra damage.

The following items are Horde-only because the “bosses” they drop from are friendly to Alliance toons: Worn Running Boots, Horned Viking Helmet. I would love to get my hands on that helmet, and I might farm it with my Tauren just so I can have it. This item used to be Plate, but was switched to Mail in Cataclysm.

The last 2 items there are quest rewards.

Scholomance
Has an insane amount of gear in it. Since we’re getting into level 40 content, I’m only going to list Mail Armor from now on, even though there may be some really nice upgrades for you that are Leather. I’m also going to stop listing items that do not give a bonus to Agility, except for weapons, and special slots such as trinkets and relics.

Of particular note are the Libram of Divinity and Totem of Sustaining as they are both Relics which you’ve likely not had access to up to this point, nor will you likely have access to another for quite some time. They also have a gem slot which can give you even more stats, though depending on which gem you put in you may not be able to benefit from the extra stats for quite a while.

You can use up to a Delicate Cardinal Ruby in this relic for +20 Agility, or if you can’t find/make/afford one then you can go with a Delicate Scarlet Ruby for +16 Agility instead. There are also lesser versions that will cost less gold on the AH (and give you less Agility), but those are the top two you’re looking for and they should be easy to find since people are still using them in some of their Cataclysm gear.

You may also consider using one of these Hit Gems since dual wielding requires more Hit, or you may even want to consider one of these Intellect Gems to increase the damage and crit rate of your spells as well as the size of your mana pool. Being able to use up to Wrath level gems in a level 40 item is pretty fantastic.

The Hammer of Revitalization gets a special mention because of its damage. It doesn’t give us the best stats, but that 12 Intellect is still pretty good and the damage is higher than the other weapons listed here.

The Counterattack Lodestone should go to a tank, of course, but if they don’t want it then you might as well take it as you’re not likely to have anything especially better.

The Dire Maul is a quest reward.

Zul’FarrakRipsaw: 1H Axe, Chance on hit: Wounds the target for 75 damage.The Hand of Antu’sul: 1H Mace, Chance on hit: Blasts nearby enemies with thunder increasing the time between their attacks by 11% for 10 sec and doing 7 Nature damage to them. Will affect up to 4 targets.

The Hand of Antu’sul is a great weapon. It doesn’t have any stats on it, but it has solid damage and the proc on it has no cooldown, meaning when you dual wield them you can have several back-to-back procs off of all of your attacks and all of your Windfury-procced attacks as well, turning you into quite the low level AoE melee machine.

Balnazzar’s Hide is a quest reward, as are the four relics at the end of that list. With a sure way to get your hands on an early relic, I highly suggest you run Strath once you reach the level required to get one (Idol is the one you want, btw). Slap a Wrath level gem in that sucker for +20 Agility, +20 Hit, +20 Intellect or anything else you please.

I mention the Lightning Bolts trinket primarily because it’s additional Hit, but also because it has an AoE Lightning effect which just screams Shaman while also being interesting.

Is it odd that the Shaman value Agi then a wide range of secondary stats? I thought that the priority stats were basically the same as rogue and cat, but with a higher level of hit needed – but adding int into the mix makes gear selection very different.

Do you find a real return on Int on gera, or should we just pop the water shield instead?

Shaman are a lot like Rogues in their stat selection, as both need similar amounts of hit being dual wielders, while the cat does not.

Shamans don’t necessarily need hit so much as they benefit from it. The great thing about being Enhancement is that some of your Attack Power counts as Spell Power as well, and you have many ways to get spells that are essentially mana free or otherwise greatly reduced in mana cost.

You will see some benefit from using gear with Intellect on it, but I wouldn’t suggest using Int over Agility if you have the choice. I’m doing a little research right now to find stat weights and priorities for the shaman that aren’t several months old, but I’ll be able to tell you more about how good it is once I find it.

As far as mana itself goes though, Water Shield should be more than enough to get the mana you need to function.